Bronze statues keep a record of where people stop being spectators.
Left alone, bronze darkens into brown or green. Under enough hands, it turns bright. Saint Peter's foot in Rome has been worn thin by pilgrims. Il Porcellino's snout in Florence shines against the rest of the boar. The sculptor modeled a whole body; the crowd chose one part.
I like these patches because they make reverence look mechanical. One hand changes nothing. Ten thousand hands become a polishing wheel. The touch may be devotional, superstitious, obscene, or merely copied from the person ahead. Intention disappears. Friction remains.
A museum object is protected from this kind of reading. Glass keeps interpretation safely behind the eyes. Public bronze has worse luck. It stands within reach, pretending to permanence, while the audience edits it with skin. Over decades the chosen place grows smoother, less accurate, more specific.
Conservators call this wear, and they are right. Something is being lost. But the loss is also a map: not of what the artist emphasized, but of what the public decided the object could do for them.
Eyes wander. Hands vote.
